your brain is being hacked. Like with most businesses, the goal is to
make money, so it kinda makes sense that restaurants and bars would do whatever they can to get
you to spend more of it. But there are a lot more ways they can manipulate
you than you might realize. From the adjectives on the menu to the size
of the plates, establishments can use all kinds of psychological tricks to influence
your behavior.
Some of them are so hardwired that even after
watching this video, you still might be fooled. But at least if you know whats happening,
theres a chance you can take back control. The mind-hacking begins with the menu. For example: Have you ever noticed that a
lot of restaurants list prices as plain numbers? Therell just be a 15 next to the
crab cakes, with no dollar sign or any other indication that its a price.
Thats not an aesthetic choice. Studies have shown that people spend more
when menus dont have dollar signs, probably because it keeps you from thinking about how
much money your order will cost. Theres also a lot of thought that goes
into how the items are listed. The options arent hamburger or baked
fish instead, theyre described as Joes meaty burger or succulent
Italian fillet.
Thats because researchers have found that
adding colorful descriptors can increase sales by up to 27%. So you might want to translate the choices
in your head before you decide what to order. Restaurants and bars can also influence both
how much you spend and how much you consume by using glasses and dishes with certain shapes
and sizes. One thing they can do is vary the size of
their dishes to take advantage of whats known as the Delboeuf illusion, where two
identical circles look different based on the size of circles around them.
Not to be confused with the Labeouf illusion,
where two identical circles are actually props in a short experimental film. In the Delboeuf illusion, if one of the circles
is surrounded by a third circle thats just a little bigger, the inside circle will look
larger than its twin. But if the outside circle is much bigger,
the inside circle will look smaller. Since food on a plate is essentially a circle
of stuff surrounded by the circle of the plates edge, this illusion can make the same portion
look bigger depending on the size of the plate.
A 2012 study in the Journal of Consumer Research
confirmed this by showing that people overestimate portions when theyre using large plates,
serving themselves more than they really wanted. With small plates, they serve themselves less. The Delboeuf illusion is so convincing that
studies have found youll actually feel more full when you eat a meal from a smaller
dish. Thats why all-you-can-eat buffets tend
to keep their plateware small so you think youre eating more when you really arent.
Meanwhile, restaurants where you pay based
on what you order tend to serve their entrees on large platters, hoping to convince you
that you still have room for dessert. Theres also a lot they can do with glassware. Research has shown that people are willing
to pay much more for drinks if you match their expectations when it comes to the shape of
the glass. Because of cultural influences, we think some
drinks simply belong in certain glasseslike a rounder, larger glass for red wines than
whites.
And when theres a mismatch, that creates
cognitive dissonancethe psychological stress we feel when a situation leads to conflicts
between our attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. You might not think of drinking hot chocolate
from a water glass as something that would cause psychological anguish, but it does! Which means we find the overall experience
less pleasant, and we dont want to pay as much for it. Certain shapes can also get you to drink faster. In a study published in PLoS ONE in 2012,
researchers found that we drink beer faster from curved glasses than straight ones.
Thats probably because our brains tend
to judge how much liquid is left based on how far up the glass it reaches, even if the
glass is much wider at the top. So with a curved glass, its harder to pace
yourself, and by the time you think youve finished half your beer, youre actually
much more than halfway through. You might end up finishing the beer much faster
than you wanted and the faster you drink, the faster you need a refill. We also tend to think tall, skinny glasses
contain more than short, fat ones, even when they dont.
Studies have found that we pour more into
short, fat glasses, and we drink more from themup to 88% more. That might come from whats known as the
horizontal-vertical illusion, where vertical lines seem longer than horizontal ones. Psychologists arent totally sure why the
illusion works, but it might be because our visual field is wider than it is tall. So, like, a line of the same length takes up a greater
percentage of what we see vertically than it does horizontally, which makes us think
its bigger.
Restaurants can even influence the way your
food or drink tastes based on how they serve it to you. One tactic uses whats known as shape symbolism,
where we associate roundness with sweetness and angles with bitterness. Like with the horizontal-vertical illusion,
were not sure why this is, but its possible that we conflate bitterness and physical sharpness
because they can both be signs of danger. Whatever the reason, shape symbolism makes
us perceive chocolate cut into rounds as sweeter than the exact same bar in chunks, or beer
from a curved glass as fruitier.
And thats just the beginning. A lot of flavor manipulation comes from a
phenomenon called sensation transference, where we transfer the properties of the plateware
or utensil to the food we eat from it. So for example, if you want to make soda taste
cooler and more refreshing, you can put it in a cool-colored containera tip Pepsi
took to heart. Even the heft of your cutlery can make a difference.
Since we automatically associate weight with
quality, well think yogurt tastes better when were eating it with a silver spoon
than when we eat it with a plastic one. And of course, as Iron Chef taught me, plating
also matters. In one study, researchers presented 60 people
with a salad of the exact same ingredients tossed, neatly sorted, or arranged to look
like a famous Kandinsky painting. Before they even tried it, participants said
they knew theyd like the artistic salad more, and ultimately, they rated it 29% tastier
than the other salads.
So if youre trying to reduce how much you
eat and drink or how much you spend you might want to keep an eye out for some of
these tricks the next time you go out to eat or meet up at the bar with your friends. Because practically everything about the place
is trying to sell you something. Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow
Psych! If youre interested in learning about more
ways businesses can use psychology to manipulate people, you can check out our video about
the tactics advertisers use to persuade you. [OUTRO].
